Black Moon Rising
by Citizen Chauvelin
Summary: The Black Moon Clan have sent the senshi's world into chaos, but when one member of the Clan goes rogue, the girls may be faced with a two front war that could ensure the opening of the Dark Gate and the destruction of Earth.
1. Prologue

Black Moon Rising

**Dear Sailor Moon community: It's no surprise that I love Sailor Moon. But I have a confession I need to make to you. I friggin' **_**love**_** the Black Moon Clan. Each and every twisted, dysfunctional one of them. I think it's hard not to. I mean, they were all manipulated into committing acts of evil under the guise of creating a better lives for them and their people who were, presumably, wrongly exiled and are now paying for the sins of their ancestors. Boo, I say, BOO! The point here, I guess, is that I love them, and this here story is going to be all up in their business.**

**Anyway, this will be done as a sort of diversion from my other SM fic, Requiem. Both will be updated regularly, though this one's a little less complicated, so it's easier to write. Anyhow, read it, let me know what you think. I'm open to suggestions, and believe me, I'll totally include them if they rock my socks.**

_Prologue_

He rolled out of the flames, eyes shut tightly against the pain and the humiliation of his final defeat. Nobody was there to see it, but that was part of the problem; the senshi _should have_ been there, dying with him. It seemed only fair He slammed the ground with a tightly closed fist, jaw clenched and glaring at the hot ground his forehead was uncomfortably pressed against. "Damn them…"

A long peal of laughter echoed through the ship and he grimaced as it grated against his ears. Despite his dire situation, he couldn't help but feel annoyance well up inside him. Esmeraude. Didn't she have the decency to just let him die in peace? "You really are a miserable sight, Rubeus…" she seemed to purr, and the redhead sharply exhaled. She might be a damn nuisance, but with her here, it meant he _didn't_ need to die in a fire. Always a plus.

Pushing up off the ground, he put his irritation to the side and decided to play nice. "Esmeraude, you're a lifesaver! Please, take me back to the future with you; this ship will explode in two minutes!" He reached out to her, pleading, _begging_ for her to just take his hand and get him out of there so he could finally go back home. Let the prince punish him in whatever way he saw fit, it didn't matter. At least he'd be alive. Though the pride he was ignoring in the back of his mind was retching to see the man grovel at the thigh high boots of a woman.

"Oh, really?" was all she said, and the man's red eyes widened in understanding at the cold, callous look on the green haired beauty's face. Well, this wasn't good…

With a quick flick of her wrist, Esmeraude brought her red feathered fan down sharply on the defeated man's hand, sneering in disgust at the pathetic creature. Really, where was the man's pride? Had he no shame? Surely, he must have known that dying quietly would have been the least he could do. After all, she was only there to make his final moments a little more miserable, not to help the wretch, goodness no! But she had to admit, if he had any shame at all, his weak and pathetic whimper of, "Huh? What?" wouldn't have been half as satisfying.

"Sailor Moon, the senshi, and the Rabbit too. You lost them all. And you still want to live in disgrace?" she drawled in a singsong voice, pointing her fan in the face of the wide eyed trembling man, his jaw slack in shock as he slowly realized that his comrade was not here to help him. Esmeraude just smirked. Victory was so, so sweet. "You are such a pitiful man."

And it was true. The words struck home and he felt as though he were being punched in the gut with every word, every syllable and whatever pride he had left slowly dissolved when he realized that this wasn't just a barrage of cruel worlds from the emerald haired beauty; there was harsh truth to the things she said, and that hurt the most. He, Kurenai no Rubeus, was on his knees, defeated and disgraced, before a woman he hated, begging for his life. It _was_ pitiful. Lord, he didn't deserve to live.

"Our glorious clan doesn't need an incompetent man like you!" she boldly declared, haughtily gazing down at the man at her feet, clutching his hand and cut and bruised and bleeding, looking up at her with wide, pleading eyes. She couldn't have been more pleased as she glared at him from over the feathers of her fan. Such a fitting end for this dog…. "I think it's time for you to disappear along with this ship…" she finally said with laughter in her voice after she finished taking the sight in. She again laughed loudly as she watched panic, disbelief, pleading and finally acceptance wash over the redhead's face, and with one last look at that haunting stare, she teleported out of the ship, leaving the man to burn alive or go down with the ship. Whichever came first.

It was a surreal feeling, really. He had heard everything she said, felt she was correct even, but he did not really understand what was going on, what she intended when she had sad the clan didn't need him, or that it was time for him to vanish. Perhaps it was the heat, or the severe beating he had taken from Sailor Moon, but he sat there listening to her and feeling almost drugged, dissociated from his body as his mind failed to process his own impending death. It was only when she vanished from the space before him that he suddenly felt as though he had fallen back to earth, his body feeling tired and heavy and he _knew_ he was going to die.

"Esmeraude! Help me!" He screamed, trying to scramble to his feet and desperately reaching out to where the woman once was, but to no avail; she was gone, and she wasn't coming back. "Esmeraude!" he cried again, slamming his fists down on the burning floor as fear tightened his chest and tears fell from his eyes, not in sadness or fear, but from pain and the searing heat around him. The ground beneath him now shook, a mere tremble at first which quickly became violent as the furnace intensified and the flames crept closer to the prone man. In a last ditch effort to hang on for as long as he could, he drew up all the power he could – very little in his weakened state – and with a fierce clenching in his chest, the last of his power was expelled as the flames engulfed him, enveloping him in hellish heat for only an instant before he felt his whole body grow cold, as though he were unceremoniously dumped into cold water. The last thing he remembered was a cold wind rushing around him as he felt himself falling.

* * *

He couldn't see it, but Saphir could feel the cruel smirk that marred Esmeraude's face as she told his brother, "Prince Dimande. As expected, it seems Rubeus wasn't up to the task…" Saphir gripped his legs tighter as he sat at the base of a large pillar just outside the throne room. He laid his head on his arm and winced as his brother dispassionately drawled, "I see. I had thought he was a little more capable than that. Then, Esmeraude, work hard so you do not share his fate…"

And that was it. Their whole lives they had been together. They had grown up together, for crying out loud, and that was it. Rubeus was dead, and that is all his brother had to say for his death. Saphir could not help but begin crying. It was true that he had not _liked_ Rubeus, so to speak; after all, the man had been nothing short of an arrogant, sadistic, womanizing bastard who bordered on the sociopathic, but even he deserved more than that when the man he died serving found out about his demise. Thought he was more capable indeed…Saphir had thought his brother was kinder than that.

He had been hoping – praying – that Rubeus would succeed so he could come home, not so much for the war, but for himself. His desire for the commander to return was entirely selfish, he knew that, and now that he was dead, the prince couldn't help but feel awful for ever having thought like that. But even now, as he sat crying in the large, spacious hallway, he couldn't tell if he was crying for his dead clan mate, or for his own loss. He was counting on Rubeus' return. Rubeus knew where Petz was…

With his death, the location of the sisters Ayakashi was lost. It was perfect. The sisters were safe, human, living on Earth, where they had always wanted to be, where _he_ wanted to be, with its fabled fields of beautiful flowers…Rubeus may have been more successful than he had thought. Truly, it was perfect; there was nobody connected to the girls left alive that could possibly bring them back to Nemesis. If he hadn't known better, he'd say that the psychopathic asshole had planned it like this himself…

It was all too much. He'd never see Petz again. With renewed energy, Saphir let himself go and wept freely into his arms.

* * *

The sky was just beginning to lighten with impending dawn and was mirrored in the water of the lake in the park, a special treat for early risers, though few were out and about in the cold autumn morning. A light breeze and falling leaves kept the lake from ever being still, the water marred by ripples and foliage and ducks that splashed about in the shallow depths.

He could not see much, though his eyes were open, he could feel that. Just varying shades of darkness overwhelmed his vision, though he could make out dark silhouettes and shadows of trees and a pathway and a dock extending into what he assumed must be a lake. He knew this place. He had been here before. He…he…

Everything was in pain, and the man couldn't remember how he got there or where exactly he was. Everything was out of focus, and the only thing that was real at that moment was the sharp, burning pain all over his body. He groaned, tried to move but found he could not, he just did not have the strength. Light slowly began to flood his vision, and though everything was fuzzy, he could at least see shapes and colors. This was something he could work with, but he needed to get up. He had no idea how long he had been out, but dawn was breaking, and no doubt it wouldn't be long before he was found by some passerby, and he just couldn't stomach that thought, not when he was so weak and so _pathetic_.

With considerable effort, he managed to lay his hand flat on the ground, an effort to push himself onto his stomach from his side failing when his shaky hand slipped out away from his body on thick, warm liquid that he was only just now beginning to notice. He brought the trembling hand to his face and tried to focus blank, listless eyes on it, only to see it covered in a deep crimson that matched the pool he lay in. Blood. _Everywhere_. He groaned deeply, chuckling weakly as he coughed and shuddered there on the ground, the same thick, horrible liquid running from his mouth with every forceful exhale. This was looking to be one of those days where he just should not have gotten out of bed.

As far as plans went, Rubeus wasn't overlooking the irony of that one either. He had them, the Sailor Senshi, in his ship. He had _won_. Sure, he didn't have Sailor Moon. Or the Rabbit. Or the Silver Crystal. Or _anything_ they had set out to accomplish…but he did have the senshi. In hindsight, if he had just killed them while he had them crucified in his ship, as he easily could have, the defenses of Crystal Tokyo would have fallen. He'd have returned a hero, the war would have been won. He was too weak to be angry. He just wanted the pain to end.

His sharp red eyes eased into focus and he could see clearly, though his thinking was still a bit foggy, a fact that he attributed to the tremendous pain that coursed through his body. He didn't need to look at himself to know that he was covered in burns and bruises. A sharp pain in his chest led him to gingerly touch the area and felt it slick with hot blood. He looked down and with a grown of irritation tried to wipe away what he could with the tatters of his vest. He groaned and went limp on the ground again, sighing heavily from the effort; there was a sizable crescent moon shaped chunk torn out of his chest from where Sailor Moon's attack had struck him. It immediately began to bleed again, and he watched this listlessly, doing nothing to stop it and noticing a faint, gold glow from the bleeding wound. Something told him that he wasn't supposed to survive the attack…

He growled loudly against the pain as he rolled onto his stomach – and right into the pool of blood – and pushed himself up onto his elbows, groaning in pain as he lifted his sore, aching body off the ground and stood on his shaking, unsteady legs. It took nearly all his effort to walk over and lean against the nearest tree so he could catch his breath and stave off the lightheadedness he felt that threatened to render himself unconscious once again. "I am _such_ an idiot…" he mumbled softly to nobody in particular, but he felt a bit better for having said it allowed. "Did I even have a plan?"

No, he didn't, and he knew this keenly. Teleporting out of that ship was perhaps one of his most idiotic impulses ever, and that was certainly saying something, since his early teens were steeped in nothing but idiocy, only this act of impulse did not have the benefit of being even remotely fun. Had he accepted his fate, he could have just died there. The pain would be over, and he wouldn't have been here suffering now. And now this…this…

Trapped in the past in a city he did not know surrounded by his enemies? Where would he go? How would he get by? Did he even want to? Really, he was as good as dead. All that teleporting off that time bomb did was delay his inevitable expiration, which was foolish, really, given how much agony he suffered now. And what would the senshi do to him if they found him? He shook his head softly and looked at the ground, his red eyes stoic and uncaring as he watched blood fall off his body in long, thick drips onto the dew covered grass at his feet. When the senshi found him, that was a better thing to ask, for they would find him, they had to. He held out his hand in front of him and tried to call upon his powers, felt the familiar, albeit faint, pull at his core, and yet nothing happened. He had given his all to escape, and whatever powers he had managed to recover in the time he lay unconscious on that path in the park no doubt were going to keeping him alive. No powers, at least not now. He felt completely naked without them, and he dropped his hand in defeat, briefly wondering if this was how humans felt. How did the Ayakashis do it? How could they accept being unburdened of their most valuable asset? He would never understand that…

Rubeus groaned in frustration, running his hand through his messy red hair, his thumb brushing his ear and his face scrunched in confusion and annoyance as he felt at the lobe; his earring was gone, as was the sliver of the lobe it was attached to, though that wound seemed to be healing and no longer bled. He sighed and carefully removed the remaining one, carefully placing it in the pocket of his pants; had that been gone too, he may have gone postal. After all, he could only take so much in one day before he absolutely had it. And the sun was only just now coming up...at three in the morning he had Sailor Moon and the Rabbit in the ship, and it must have been nearing six now. When had he last slept? His eye twitched at the thought; the unconsciousness didn't count. He felt completely exhausted. All he wanted at this point was a nap. And a five course steak dinner. And maybe a long, long bath. And while he was fantasizing, he may as well ask for a mermaid and a harem of large bosomed beautiful women and an island in the tropics, because he was just as likely to get those things as anything else.

With a deep breath, he let his body relax against the tree as he removed his vest and held the bloody, tattered thing to his chest, his other hand gingerly rubbing at his shoulder as he quietly watched the sun rise over the lake. He couldn't go home. His prince no doubt has heard he is dead, as he really should be. And he made some serious enemies out of the Ayakashi sisters. He really had nowhere to go.

"What do I do now?"


	2. Life After Death

Black Moon Rising

**I wasn't expecting to write the next chapter in this fic so soon, but there's this one essay for school I'm sort of putting off doing, so when I had an idea of his to start this chapter off, I had a really, really good reason to stop the schoolwork. So procrastination, here's to you! Also, if you couldn't tell already, this here story focuses on the Black Moon Clan, and the fact that don't have a tag for the clan as a whole pisses me off, really, so I didn't tag it at all. Granted, the senshi will be in this. A lot. Just not in this chapter. Much. That's it! Enjoy, let me know what you want to see.**

_Chapter 1: Life After Death_

Berthier Ayakashi didn't hit the road until around six thirty, which was a late start for her, but when she got up that morning, her sisters Koan and Calaveras hadn't gone to bed yet, so she was feeling a bit good about herself when she compared herself to her lazy sisters. It was unusually cold for this time of year, though it had to turn this way eventually: as fall crept into winter, brisk autumn days were expected to become frigid winter, though today it felt less like a gradual change and more like winter had just been dumped upon them.

It warmed up quickly when she began running, so much so that she unzipped her jogging jacket to let some of the cool air brush against her skin and the thin tank top she wore; it was hardly surprising that Berthier loved the cold, reveled in it, and she took every opportunity she could to get out and take it in. She loved Earth, more than she could say, and her morning runs were typically the highpoint of her day since she could get out and soak in the beauty of the city and the nature that her home planet of Nemesis lacked. And it was _quiet_; even though the city was large, not many people were up and about engaging in leisurely activities at that hour in the morning.

She always passed the same elderly couple on the bench in the park as they sat and fed the ducks; they always waived, and she always smiled at them. She always passed the same group of six women out on their power walking route, and they always shouted to her, telling her they'd be in to the store later that week, a promise they always honored. And the same cute guy always ran passed her and she'd blush and giggle as he whistled at her as he passed. She breathed in deeply as she ran down the path, hardly paying attention as she went until she stepped in a puddle. Berthier signed in annoyance as she felt the water permeate her sock and she slowed to a walk as she kicked her foot out trying to shake the wetness off. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a fleck of red fly off her shoe, and she looked down to see her foot splattered with blood.

The woman stopped moving immediately, her eyes wide and completely mortified, unable to move for a few minutes before she quickly swept her eyes over the path behind here. Her bright blue eyes focused on her bloody footprint leading away from a conspicuously large pool of blood on the ground about fifty feet away. Morbid curiosity overtook her, and she slowly crept toward the deep red pool, looking around for other people as she came close; it was times like this she wished she still had her powers. Or a taser. The path was a little out of the way, but it wasn't too far off the main path. She was shocked others haven't seen this grisly scene yet.

The way the blood splattered and was smeared across the ground made it pretty obvious that whoever – or whatever – it was that was here before was alive when they left, and Berthier smiled in satisfaction; if it had been any of her other sisters what were here instead of her, they would have freaked out and ran away. No, no, she was going to go see if whoever the blood belonged to was still around. The might need help if they were still alive.

The woman looked around and her eyes followed a trail of thick drops on the ground that left the path and continued into the trees. She frowned when she felt the blood on the ground was cold, but followed the trail anyway to a large tree just out of sight of the path, the trunk stained with blood and a small puddle of the horrible substance pooling between the roots. For a second, the white haired young woman wondered if she shouldn't just run home and call the police, but a rustling further in the grove made her abandon the thought and, driven by insatiable curiosity, rushed through the dimly lit landscape – much further than she would have suspected a badly injured person to go - until she saw the outline of a man tightly gripping a small tree, hunched over and breathing clearly ragged and clinging to that little tree for support.

"Hey, hey, are you alright?" Berthier cried, jogging over to the man, but he did not so much as indicate that he had heard her at all. She gently touched his bare shoulder, looking at him with concern as her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit grove, and when they did, all she could focus on was the black crescent moon that starkly marked his bloodstained, pale forehead.

"Jesus Christ!" she yelled, jumping away from the bloody man and running a little ways away from him before she turned her head and looked behind her, and when she saw that the man didn't move, she stopped, standing so far from the man she could barely see him in the shadows. Why wasn't he moving? He was standing, he was clearly alive, he must have seen her. She was there – right there! – in front of him and he did not so much as bat an eye. That wasn't like him at all. "Rubeus!" she called, taking a cautious, small step forward. "What are you doing? Why are you here? Answer me!"

Nothing. Not even the sound of birds could be heard. It was like even the wildlife could smell death or feel the evil surrounding the man. When nothing moved, Berthier slowly shuffled forward, stopping every ten feet or so to examine the man for movement or life or anything at all. Was he even real? She took about five minutes before she stood before him, holding her breath and standing as tall as she could as she looked directly into his face.

His eyes were completely vacant, they typical sharp cruelness now just a dull red and though he looked directly at her, it was clear that he did not see her. The blood was obviously his, as he was covered in it and stood in a sizable puddle of it and it was coming in thick spurts from a large hole torn in his chest. How was it even possible he was alive? "What happened to you?" she mumbled, reaching out to touch the still man, but pulling her hand away before she did. Why was she even here! This was a man who controlled and manipulated and abused and _destroyed_ her and her sisters. If he was dying – and it looked like he was – then she was better off turning around and letting him die, because god knew he deserved it and worse.

But then again…

If the senshi found him like this, hurt and injured and defenseless and possibly dying, those girls would drop everything to try and help him, even though he was their enemy, even though he's tried to kill them. Even though he threatened to kill an innocent young girl. Hell, it's what they did for her and her sisters. Maybe he could-

The redhead lurched forward and the Ayakashi yelped and jumped back, trembling as she watched thick rivulets of blood run from his mouth and into the pool at his feet. This man was a public menace. He wanted her and her sisters and their saviors the Sailor Senshi dead. He was cruel and vicious and heartless and evil and if anyone in the history of ever deserved to die a slow, painful death, it was him.

She had to help him.

She took off her jacket and held it to the gash on his chest, prying his fingers off the tiny tree with her free hand and when she got him to let go, she nearly collapsed under the weight of him, as she was now the only thing keeping him standing. Struggling, she slid his arm over her shoulders, keeping her jacket pressed to his chest and began to stagger out of the grove toward one of the many paths in the park. "Rubeus? Can you hear me?" No response. Gritting her teeth, she grasped his arm more tightly, her fingers digging into burned, bloody flesh. "Don't worry, we're going to help you."

Coming out to the pathway, Berthier stopped, puffing heavily and watching her breath freeze in the air before her. It was a twenty minute run from home, and she was being weighed down by a barely conscious, severely bleeding man. How was she going to do this? "I swear to god, I'm the greatest person on the planet," she growled as she steeled herself for the journey before her and started back home.

Petz woke up ten minutes before noon and exited her room with a yawn; a day where the eldest Ayakashi woke up in the morning was a good day, as she was still getting used to actually having to get up at a decent hour. Nemesis wasn't exactly good for keeping to a day-night schedule, and she and Calaveras had only been on Earth for about half a week. At least she was doing better than her sister; Calaveras was typically in bed until three, and Koan was no better. Really, her younger sisters were just lazy…

She yawned again, running her fingers through her hair as she shuffled down the hall past her younger sisters' rooms; not a sound, unsurprisingly. Normally she would have banged on their doors and hauled their lazy asses out of bed, but it was a Sunday, which freed them from all their obligations, including her duty to babysit and deal with her very loud, very argumentative siblings, and she felt she deserved a break as much as anybody else.

She had hardly set foot in the kitchen when a slender hand painted with blue nail polish shot out and grabbed her wrist and, with uncharacteristic strength, practically threw her into one of the kitchen chairs before the hand's owner plunked down in the chair opposite her; Petz groaned, her fingers gently rubbing her forehead. Berthier. And she had thought she deserved a break.

"I have a…confession," the white haired woman said quietly, biting her thumb as her eyes darted about looking in the direction of every little sound, but avoiding making contact with her eldest sister. She nervously laughed. "And you're the only one I can tell. I can't tell Calaveras, certainly not! And Koan…oh, Koan!" she wailed, her head slamming against the kitchen table.

Petz drummed her long fingers against the table, her head resting tiredly against her palm. She really didn't have the patience to deal with her sister's dramatics at this hour. "What is it?" she tiredly snapped, glaring at the younger woman. Berthier shot up straight, tense and stiff as a board and finally looking wide eyed at the irritable woman.

"Well, you see, funny thing," Berthier said sheepishly, twirling her braid nervously under the scrutinizing gaze of her eldest sister. "You know how so, _so_ happy I am that you and Cal are here with us, and I'm so glad that we can all be friends here with the senshi and, and…" Petz was not amused. Clearing her throat, the younger sister meekly said, "Well, given how we owe our lives to the senshi and all, I…well, I'm trying to be more like them, you know? And-"

Petz had enough. She slammed her hands on the table and stood up from the chair. "Berthier, every time you talk you waste oxygen!"

"But Petz, I-"

"When you actually have something to say-"

"Rubeus is in my room!"

Petz looked at her for a long time, not saying a word as she examined the girl and she gazed at the floor and bit her lip and tightly gripped her braid in her small, delicate hands. After a while, Petz finally took off down the hall, Berthier close on her heels and begging her in a hushed tone to stop, but the green haired woman would have none of it. She strongly grasped the handle of the frantic girl's room and threw the door open. She didn't move from her place in the doorway; she didn't need to. For such a clean girl, the room was in terrible disarray and lying in the bed she could see the shock of tussled red hair that belonged to their former commander.

She stood there slack jawed for a very long while, and Berthier stared at her in silence, trying to gauge a reaction, but there was none. Then, without warning, Petz slammed the door shut and pinned her sister against the wall, her forearm pressed threateningly against her throat. Petz was suddenly very, very awake, and Berthier was very, very scared. "You…you did _what_ here?"

"I'm sorry!" she wailed, pulling her sister's arm away from her throat. "I know the last time we saw him he tried to kill us all by sucking us all into a rift in the fabric of time and space, but-"

"_This_ is how you strive to be like the senshi?" she growled, pressing in closer to her terrified sister. "By _sleeping_ with the man that almost killed all of us?"

"What? No!" She laughed nervously, gently patting the green haired woman's hand in an attempt to calm the enraged woman. "No, no, I didn't sleep with him! I…I found him! Out in the park! On my run!"

"And the first thing you happened to think was 'Hey, I know! I'll take this man who tried to kill my family home with me,' is that it?" Her strong hands wrapped around the white haired girl's slender neck and she began violently shaking the choking sister, hitting her head against the wall. "_What's wrong with you_!"

"You're. Going. To. Wake. Our. Sisters," Berthier grunted, her head slamming against the wall behind her punctuating her sentence and with that, Petz suddenly let go and ran off down the hallway, leaving Berthier in a gasping, coughing heap outside her room. Berthier didn't move from her spot on the floor, thinking that it all went very well, until Petz returned moments later wielding a massive knife that she took from the kitchen. The girl's blue eyes widened in fear. "Petz, what are you-"

"That bastard's dead!" she growled, holding the knife above her head and throwing the door open, this time charging into the room. She had stalked about halfway to the bed when Berthier had grabbed hold of her wrist wielding the weapon and pulled her back, making the eldest sister reel on the younger, but the blue eyed girl would not back down. "You let me go this instant, idiot!" Petz growled through clenched teeth, but the girl was resolved and yanked hard on the larger woman's wrist, pulling her off balance, making her drop the knife.

For a long while they stood there, glaring viciously at each other, locked in a battle of wills. It was Petz who finally tore her eyes away from her sister's when she noticed the mess and the misplaced red stains at the edges of her vision and finally looked about the room, her eyes widening in horror as she took in the sight of towels soaked in blood and long lengths of used bandaged strewn about the room haphazardly. Her body went limp in shock, and Berthier led her to the chair at her desk and sat her down, clutching her hand tightly. "What happened here…" Petz asked, dazed, and her sister grasped her hand tighter.

"I found him in the park on my run. He was bleeding so badly and he was barely conscious. I couldn't leave him there, you know?" Berthier swallowed and tightly hugged her sister when the woman groaned softly. "I know, I know, it was probably a bad thing to do," she whispered. "I know he's got no redeeming qualities, and I know he tried to murder us all. Many times. But I just _couldn't_ just watch him die or leave him there; it would have made me just as bad as him!"

"That is _a lot_ of blood," she said in an unsteady voice, and the younger Ayakashi pet her hair.

"You never did do well around blood." Berthier giggled softly, breathing deeply as she clutched her eldest sister. "For someone as tough as you, it's really sort of surprising. I'd expect it from Koan, not you."

"Are you hurt? It's so much blood, did he hurt you?" Petz swiftly questioned, standing up and tightly grasping the smaller girl's arms.

"Really, I'm fine, not a scratch."

"Did he hurt you?"

Berthier laughed at this. "Petz, when I found him, it was like he was completely dazed from blood loss. He couldn't see or hear anything, so far as I could tell; I doubt he even knew where he was or what had happened."

Petz pointed at the towels covered in blood and angrily said, "There is enough blood there for more than one person!"

"You obviously have no idea how much blood there is in the human body, and in a big guy like him? There's a lot of it." There was a sharp, deep gasp from the man in the bed, and the two sisters jumped and bolted to the hallway, their racing hearts calming swiftly when they poked their heads back into the room and saw no movement. Sighing heavily, Berthier padded over to the bed and lightly touched the redhead's bandaged forehead and gently laid her fingers on his neck and felt his pulse – a slow, strong, steady beat – and with a sigh, she joined her sister in the hallway, closing the door behind her.

"My point," Berthier said softly, "is that when I found him, there was a lot – _a lot_ – more blood than that. What's in there is really nothing."

"A lot of it?" Petz asked softly. "In the park?" She turned on her heel and stalked down the hall, her bare feet padding loudly on the carpet as she walked into the living room, picked up the remote and turned the television on and flipped a few channels to the news, and the screen was immediately filled with flashing lights and hoards of police and forensic scientists.

"_The police are unable to identify the blood as human_," the reporter said in a businesslike manner, "_but they are not ruling out a homicide. If anyone has any information regarding this crime, the police ask they come forward and_-"

"See this?" Petz asked the white haired woman as she walked in from the hallway and stood behind the couch. "This here is bad news. Bad, bad news. Not human blood all over the park! What are they going to think!"

"Relax!" Berthier hissed, glaring at the indignant woman. "They have absolutely _nothing_ that they can compare that to! He's not human, that blood isn't human! They won't be able to identify it!"

"That's even worse! Sending the people here into confusion to cover up for that thing!" she snarled, pointing down the hallway. She sighed deeply, grabbing her hair tightly. "Look, we can't do anything about this now. Did you have a plan with what to do with him? He can't stay here, Koan would _freak out_. And it wouldn't be one of those little things, oh no, it would be atomic."

"I thought I'd tell the senshi the truth," she said, shrugging. "Tell them I found him and couldn't leave him to die since maybe he _wouldn't_…and I took him back here to keep an eye on him until I could tell them about it. That's the plan."

"You know, he's probably in that condition to begin with because of the senshi," Petz drawled, crossing her arms. "You saw that stunt he pulled on the news last night, they must have fought him. They probably want him dead as much as I do."

"Then let them decide that!" Berthier cried, hitting the back of the sofa for emphasis. "They have the right to know and only they have the right to decide what to do with him. Let's remember, if it was our duty to decide the fate of people, you and Calaveras would have killed me and Koan."

A flash of anger passed over the older woman's face and she tensed up, and then suddenly relaxed. "Yes, you are correct. We are perhaps too quick to judge. Sailor Moon must decide."

"Yes. And that's why I brought him here, see! If he was left out and somehow miraculously survived on his own, then all of us – the senshi too – would be in _huge_ shit. But now, see, we can watch him until the senshi resolve the issue!"

"They could very well kill him."

"That's fine, at least they decided and at least they knew. And if they save him, he's healed like us and no harm done!"

Petz listened to all this very carefully, nodding slowly as her sister spoke as she took it all in. Finally she stood up, running her fingers through her messy green hair. "Get me some coffee. I'm going to shower and get ready, and then I'm going to go meet up with the senshi. You," she said, pointing a menacing finger at her younger sister. "You are going to keep an eye on Rubeus, got it? Of all of us, he probably hated you least. After all, you're the only one he didn't personally try to kill."

She saluted. "Whatever you say, boss." With that, Petz disappeared down the hall, mumbling profanities under her breath. God help her, even her smartest sister was an absolute moron.


End file.
